


Black Iron is Iron Still

by Bhelryss



Series: Dáin2k15 [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, dain2k15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4372841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dáin is thirty two years and four months old, his sideburns are just long enough to hold an inch-long braid, and he's going to war. Nothing makes him appreciate home quite like Azanulbizar, however.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Iron is Iron Still

Amad hadn’t been gentle with his braids, thick fingers nimbly pulling and twisting unruly red hair into something tight and close to his skull. “There,” she’d said, giving his wispy sideburns an affectionate tug, lips pressed together into a thin line. “That ought to keep your hair out yer face. Stubborn boy.”

“Are we close?” he pressed, rubbing hands over his trousers and listening closely to ruckus of dwarrows and dams outside the deceptive calm of his family’s tents. “I want to make an entrance with cousin Thorin. I bet I can kill more orcs than he can!” He boasted, hissing when Amad cuffed his ear.

“This isn’t a game, Nudnel.” She chastised, before falling silent. Outside voices were being raised, and a great stomping of feet set the ground beneath them atremble. “Put in your clasps.” said Nertak, daughter of Gertak and Nanth, wife to Náin and father of Dáin II. With an ease born of familiarity, hands threaded wrought iron beads and clasps into her beard and hair. “Black iron for black business, Nudnel.” she reminded, before pushing past him and out into the stark blackness of pre-dawn.

Clumsy in comparison, he struggled with his own. With a snort, he shoved the remainder back into their box, impatient to rejoin his father, mother, grandparents, and other Iron Hills dwarrow in the crowd. Dáin blinked, eyes adjusting to the darkness after the yellow glow of the tent’s lanterns. Practically vibrating with energy, he pushed through older, gruffer looking dwarrow and dams until he stood head to waist with his mother.

“We go to the aid of the elder line of Durin!” Grór roared above the noise. He stands on a box at the head of the Iron Hills contingent, greying red hairs rendered dark and uniform in the gloom. For every word, every curse against the brash and ill-conceived hubris of the Orcs, a wave of echoing roars and stomping rise to greater fervor.

When the speech is over and the tents secured, those of the red hills and iron mines set out at a run for Dimrill Dale, for Azanulbizar.

* * *

 

The battlefield was a dizzying crush of bodies, alive and dead, Orc and Dwarrow. Cries of “Baruk Khazâd!” echoed and mixed with the screams of the maimed and the dying, the snarls and curses and frightening screeches of Black Speech. Dáin loses sight of his Amad, Adad, and his grandfather quickly, and an unlucky step has him rolling in the blood-soaked mud.

His heart was in his throat, his lungs ached and his arms tired from blow, after blow, after blow. Here was blocking an Orcish blade with the shaft of his axe. Now was being back to back with a greybeard, blades singing and panic easing. Then was defending the greybeard’s body, but being pushed back by sheer numbers and stumbling over previously felled bodies.

Amad hadn’t been spotted since the charge, Adad...he thought he’d seen his father’s distinctive armor closer to the gates, but he can’t be sure. He can’t spare the greybeard another look, his eyes are busy trying to watch his own back, trying to spot the next enemy and distinguish it from the nearest ally. He grieved though, for just a moment, before he pushed onwards.

There was seeing Cousin Thorin, a flash of blond that might be Frerin, shining mail marking them as different, as noble. For what feels like an eternity, they fight around each other, three young dwarrow desperately cutting down those who would end their lives short. Later was a brief respite, a bubble of silence after Thorin gutted the last Orc encroaching upon them, a dark-shafted arrow embedding itself in the weak place between mail and gorget.

A falling curtain of sun-gold hair, surprised brown eyes and a parted mouth in a silent, “Oh.”

Too late was Thorin’s wailing grief, Dáin and his red-stained blade standing guard. Allowing, even for that brief moment, a boy to grieve his brother. Always too late was Thorin’s rage, sword sliding in and out of Orc bodies. It doesn’t save the Dwarrow who have fallen. Always too late was Dáin’s echoing axe, making a sister circle of singing steel and blood to Thorin’s sword.

Here. Now. Then. There. Too late, always too late.

The steps are covered in bodies, the majority swaddled in rent armor and broken mail. Dáin’s booted feet knocked against broken blades and bones and the leather looks red. He turned, back facing Thorin, trusting that his back was safe while he safeguards their flank. A heart-wrenching scream, Thorin! Náin’s head bounced down the steps of Moria, limp body still held aloft as Azog laughed.

Thorin lost his sword as they charge together up to his father’s killer. His Adad, his father! They’re separated, but Dáin hardly noticed, pivoting sharply underneath the huge Orc’s nose. His axe was sharp before he’d even left the Iron Hills encampment, and the battle hasn’t dulled it much. The swing surprised the Orc commander, and took his arm.

The resulting battle, short as it was, took Azog’s head and Dáin’s foot. Thorin and Dáin touched foreheads, afterwards, blood caked into hair and beard and sideburns, one’s broken hand still clenching a piece of oaken debris and the other’s hand an axe acting as a crutch.

* * *

 

After, when stitches and casts have been applied and stumps cauterized, Dáin stared at the ceiling of the medical tent. Dwalin son of Fundin is two cots down, grumbling unhappily at anyone who listens. He went silent when Balin was carried in, and that is so much worse than the constant complaints. Thorin limped off to see his father, and Dáin doesn’t know if his cousin has had his hand checked.

When the shadows on the walls of the tent turned an interesting shade of purple (“Amethyst, Nudnel, like the gem.”) and started dancing in time to his mother’s Stonefoot lullabye, he thanked Mahal for whatever the healers gave him. The colors smelled like his mother’s melon-bread and like pine coated clay. It smelled like home.

If he cried into his pillows, into his bloodied, smelly clothes, no one bothered him. He was thirty-two years and four months, and his Adad was dead.

He slept fitfully, Azog’s pale head and vicious smile merging with the greybeard’s broken arm and neck to startle him awake every time. Whatever the healers gave him wore off by the his body refused to stay asleep, and Thorin was dozing by his bedside, a cast on his arm and stitches keeping a gash on his arm together.

“Cousin?” He croaked, suddenly desiring water. He reeked of sweat and guts and rust, his throat was parched, and his right foot itched and ached in turns. Thorin doesn’t stir, and Dáin sank back into sleep without moving. His foot itched and ached and he’s so tired, so thirsty…

* * *

 

The smell of pyre smoke and the slow dirges and the traditional mourning songs echoed in his head. His mother’s wrought iron beads are clutched tightly in one hand, the other clutching a crutch. “Lord of the Iron Hills,” Mizim Silvertongue addressed him, once his father and mother have both been found.

Spine stiff, jaw clenched tight. Thirty two years and four months and he was lord. Somewhere, most likely just past the quintet of Dwarrow praying to Mahal, Thorin is standing similarly. They’ve both lost, and gained new titles. Dáin thought, quite petulantly, that Oakenshield was a much preferable one to Lord.

When...when the dead have been treated with all the respect they can give, considering the circumstances, the host of Dwarves parted ways. His mother’s beads and clasps were in his beard and hair, and Dáin clasped Thorin’s unbroken forearm. “Don’t...Don’t be a stranger, cousin.” He said, gruffer than his age would merit. “I expect a damn letter, Oakenshield.”

For a moment, he thought Thorin might smile. “If you can read it, your Pig-Iron Lordship.” Dáin snorted, leaning heavily on his good leg for a moment so he can slap at Thorin’s shin with his crutch. The prince danced away, before closing the distance and ruffling the unruly red mop Dáin’s hair has become. “Send a raven, once you are home safe.”

* * *

 

For the first few kilometers towards home, Dáin leads his people from the front. For the next two, he spends his brisk, hobbled march towards the center of the walking wounded. He lapses more towards the back after, crutch uncomfortable and exhaustion weighing down his remaining limbs. He spends the rest of that first day hobbling beside a cart, and occasionally inside it when his leg bothers him too much.

The next days starts out the same, only the hip he uses to compensate for his hobbled gait hurts more than before. For the remainder of the month it takes to get back home, Dáin gets to know the aching of his joints and the inside of his cart very well. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but every mile closer to home, the skies look bluer and the skies taste less like smoke and ash and death.

The first sunrise that shines on red clay and dirt has him choking up. He dawdles behind, and presses a hand to the ground, knuckles brushing against pine needles and loam and underneath the silt and clay that was home. The Iron Hills themselves are still a week or two out, but they’re close. So close.

The gates of home are simple, nothing like Moria. Nothing like Khazad-dûm, thank Mahal. The air is fresh, and the stairs are familiar, if suddenly more difficult to traverse. The halls are wide and big, and rough-cut. He’s never been more grateful for the that, as he leans against the stone and pants. Handgrips and rough flooring aplenty, his balance may be shot but he can keep foot and crutch on the ground easily.

His parents’ room is too painful to look at, and his own toys and other things seem...trivial and fake. But he sits on his bed, and he stares at his hearth. Breathes in the air, the smell of rock and coal and metal and chill. If he listens hard, he thinks he can hear the river and the rapids above him and the clink clink thud of the artisans and smiths down below.

Nertak’s clasps are warm in his pocket, and his father’s prize boar head hangs in the room next door with its ivory tusks. He thinks he has an idea, but mostly he just wants his parents to be with him. Shivering breaths going in and out, eyes prickling, Dáin wraps his arms around himself. Lord of the Iron Hills! Him! Thirty two and four months! By the time he’s realized he’s making noises, he can’t tell if he’s been laughing or crying.

With a sniff, he sits up. “That’s enough feeling sorry fer myself.” he insists. He has iron to reforge and tusks to set into new beard decorations. His mother’s son and his father’s heir. They are gone, but he’s still here. Dáin feels the shape of his mother’s clasps through the fabric of his pockets and nods to himself.

And he’ll make time for the new piglets too.


End file.
